Stimulating the rental market : federal and provincial housing policy from 1935-2019

[Para. 1 of Introduction] The Canadian Rental Housing Index outlines that in 2018, Ontario’s rental market is as unhealthy as it has ever been (Canadian Rental Housing Index, n.d.). This is due to the fact that the supply of rental housing has not kept up with the growing demand for this tenure type. From 2011-2016, the average rate of renter formation1 was approximately 34,000 renter households per year (Urbanation, 2019). During this same period approximately 5,000 purpose-built rental units were completed CMHC, 2018). This misalignment between the supply and demand of rental housing has resulted in extremely low vacancy rates. In 2017, the vacancy rate in Ontario hit 1.6%, the lowest it has been since 2000 (CMHC, 2017). It is important to recognize that the roots of this problem in Ontario reach back further than the last ten years, but the problems have become increasingly acute during this time frame.